<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > October 22, 1555, port of Malta. </h1>
Mediterranean paddle sailing
Romga, commander of the oared galleons of the Knights of St. John, is leading four warships to rest here. That night, Romga rested early, and he did not expect that disaster was about to come.
At midnight, a strange whirlwind suddenly blew on the surface of the sea, breaking the masts of several paddle sailing ships. Soon, several ships were blown over by the fierce wind... Early the next morning, rescuers rushed to the scene in small boats and found several paddle boats floating on the surface of the sea, and it seemed that there could be no survivors.
However, as they approached one of the ships, they suddenly heard a dull knocking sound, and there were still people in the cabin! Rescuers immediately looked for the exact location of the knock, then quickly chiseled a large hole. In the darkness, accompanied by a scream came an animal, the pet monkey on the boat.
Immediately after, Commander Romga also drilled out, and the experienced him found a small underwater space, where the water only flooded his shoulder. Romga didn't venture to escape by diving, he knew someone would come to the rescue, so he waited until now.
The others on the ship, however, were not so lucky.
When the rescuers turned the boat over with floating buckets and other tools, they saw the shocking scene: all the oarsmen, more than 300 people, were drowned, and their bodies were still chained to the oarsmen's seats...
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > human-powered paddle schooners that lasted from the Ancient Greek period to the late Middle Ages. </h1>
Traditional Calais paddle boats
As the name suggests, the main power of the paddle boat comes from the oarsmen, and the number of oarsmen required varies depending on the size of the battleship. Small paddle schooners only need a few dozen people, and large warships can reach hundreds of people.
The tragic experience of these oarsmen stemmed from the ships they drove, and their main purpose was war. Ancient Egyptians and Cretans did use paddle schooners for commercial activities, but it soon became apparent that it was expensive and impractical to provide food and fresh water for many paddlers.
As a result, paddle sailing gradually became the most important type of warship in the Mediterranean.
Paddle schooners generally have a shallow draft and can easily dock and facilitate amphibious combat. In addition, paddle schooners rely on human power and are more flexible than galleons, which is very suitable for plundering merchant ships. Of course, because it is driven by a paddler, it can be flexibly attacked and retreated during combat, which is convenient for command.
However, paddle schooners also have weaknesses. It could not sail long distances because it had to dock frequently to replenish fresh water for paddlers to drink. Therefore, it can only fight offshore. In addition, the situation on the battlefield is changing rapidly, and chasing or escaping requires the oarsman to row the boat desperately - therefore, the "loss" of the oarsman is staggeringly high, and it must be replenished frequently.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > so how exactly do paddlers "wear out"? </h1>
Slaves paddling
The sources of oarsmen varied from time to time, and before the 16th century there were more free people, who were employed to work and would not be tied to chains - but these people were often very poor and had no other way to make a living, so the working environment and treatment would not be very good. In the Mediterranean Sea, which began in the 16th century, the Islamic world and the Christian world began to erupt in a long-term conflict, and criminals, prisoners and slaves gradually became the main force of oarsmen.
Especially during the period of frequent naval battles, both sides began to purposefully plunder the population, act as slaves, and act as oarsmen on battleships. The article begins with a disaster in malta's port where more than 300 oarsmen died were Muslim slaves.
Slaves were treated without thinking about their life or death at all.
Slave oarsmen were often locked together by three or four men, fixed to a bench about 0.3 meters wide. Once fixed to a certain seat, they cannot move for a short time.
Slave oarsmen could only eat a little black biscuit every day and starved. Except for a pair of linen breeches, it was a chain on his hands and feet. As long as the warship needs to move, the oarsman must paddle according to the rhythm, and if he is not careful, he will be beaten by the overseer with a leather whip.
Paddling hard is the only thing they have to do, even if they are exhausted, they can't rest. Especially when the warship is trying to chase the enemy or try to escape, the supervisors desperately wield the leather whip, and the oarsmen must paddle desperately for a long time. This is not an exaggeration, and it is normal to die of exhaustion.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > slave oarsmen would not live long, even if they were not exhausted. </h1>
Stills from the Hollywood movie "Bin Hur"
To prevent escape, once out to sea, paddlers are fixed to benches, sometimes for months. This means that their eating and drinking Lasa are all solved in one place, and they can't sleep and rest for a long time, and some paddlers will go crazy directly.
In His Empire of the Seas: Armageddon in the Mediterranean, the British scholar Roger Crowley quotes an Englishman of the same period as saying: "Rows of poor people who were starving, tanned and lean, locked on wooden boards, sometimes unable to leave for months... The bare flesh was brutally whipped and urged to paddle hard, even beyond the reach of human beings..."
Obviously, such work makes the death rate of paddlers very high.
In addition, because the slaves' eating and drinking were in a small space, the paddle sailboats often stinked, and the people in the harbor could smell the smell from a long distance. In the 16th century, paddle schooners would dock in port at intervals and wash them off with seawater. However, such an environment makes the disease easy to spread, killing a large number of paddlers in a very short time.
Some lucky slave oarsmen, carrying the overseers' whips, survived the long war, survived the raging disease, and finally returned to the port to rest for a short time. But what awaited them was the next time they set sail, and the paddlers who had long been squeezed dry would not last long.
As a result, the paddle boat during the war needed to constantly replenish the oarsmen.
Beginning in the early 16th century, the Islamic and Christian worlds competed in the Mediterranean, blatantly plundering coastal cities. Countless people became slaves and were sent to oared schooners to work as oarsmen.
These slave oarsmen will soon die of exhaustion and illness, and the corpses will be thrown directly into the sea, and new slaves will be replenished...